But Pai has also been taking heat for his pursuit of another pet project: gutting media consolidation and ownership rules solely for the benefit of Sinclair Broadcasting, which is seeking approval for its $3.9 billion bid for Tribune. In the last few months, Pai has, as promised, been "taking a weed whacker" to rules intended to protect local reporting, media competition, and opinion diversity. That has included killing an 80 year rule intended to protect local competitors and journalism from unchecked monopoly control of a market, and taking an axe to some protections but bringing back others solely to Sinclair's benefit:

"On Tuesday, the FCC eliminated a requirement for broadcasters to keep a local studio. A day later, Pai called for easing ownership restrictions, potentially taking pressure off Sinclair’s $3.9 billion deal for Tribune Media Co.’s TV stations. Earlier, he had restored an obsolete rule, making the deal possible. On Thursday, the agency moved toward blessing a new broadcasting standard that may enrich Sinclair as it offers viewers sharper pictures."

"The marketplace today is nothing like it was in 1975. Newspapers are shutting down. Many radio and TV stations are struggling, especially in smaller and rural markets. Online competition for the collection and distribution of news is even greater than it ever was. And just two Internet companies [Google and Facebook] claimed 100 percent of recent online advertising growth. Indeed, their digital ad revenue alone this year will be greater than the market cap of the entire broadcasting industry. And yet the FCC's rules still presume that the market is defined entirely by pulp and rabbit ears."

Obviously the argument that "Google and Facebook are big" and therefore media consolidation rules are unnecessary doesn't hold a whole lot of water. And while it's true that many newspapers and local news outlets are "struggling," that's more a failure of adaptation than a justification for gutting media consolidation restrictions that still aid smaller, regional news outlets. Unsurprisingly, fellow FCC Commissioners like Jessica Rosenworcel have called for an investigation into Pai's giant, sloppy kiss to Sinclair:

"It has reached a point where all of our media policy decisions seem to be custom-built for this one company," Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democratic FCC member, said Wednesday at a congressional hearing. "It’s something that merits investigation.”

This mindless obsession with mergers and consolidation (with little thought as to the impact on markets or competition) has been a hallmark of the Trump administration. But opposition to this growth-for-growth's sake has been increasingly bipartisan in nature, with many smaller Conservative outlets worried they'll be unable to compete with giants like Comcast NBC Universal, Sinclair/Tribune, and soon AT&T Time Warner. Smaller organizations like the American Cable Association (ACA) applauded and supported Pai's rise to power, now seem surprised as his policies focus almost exclusively on aiding the biggest and wealthiest companies:

"ACA urges the Federal Communications Commission to deny the Sinclair-Tribune transaction because it would violate existing FCC rules while at the same timing failing to meet the obligation to demonstrate it would serve the public interest. Even if the transaction were not per se unlawful, it would create a broadcasting behemoth with unprecedented control over both the national and local television markets,” ACA President and CEO Matthew M. Polka said."

Whether it's gutting net neutrality solely for the benefit of a few giant ISPs, or gutting media consolidation rules exclusively to aid one giant media empire, Pai's legacy at the FCC will be one of brutal myopia, obfuscated by tall tales about his relentless dedication to the little guys he seems blatantly intent on ignoring.

"failing to meet the obligation to demonstrate it would serve the public interest."

It failed this a long time ago and every still refuses to admit it. you get what you get... keeping your heads buried in the sand and waiting until its too late to actually change your position on how to fix this!

Re: Re: obligation?

Subject to the provisions of this section, the Commission shall determine, in the case of each application filed with it to which section 308 of this title applies, whether the public interest, convenience, and necessity will be served by the granting of such application, and, if the Commission, upon examination of such application and upon consideration of such other matters as the Commission may officially notice, shall find that public interest, convenience, and necessity would be served by the granting thereof, it shall grant such application.

(Highlighting added.)

The “Commission”, in this chapter of Title 47, refers to the FCC. (See 47 USC 154(a).)

Re:

It gets worse as Sinclair is eyeing to buy WGN, arguably the largest non-network affiliated station. Now... the problem here is that they aren't gobbling up independent stations, there are a LOT of Network affiliated stations that they own. Now I am not a fan of Fox News, BUT... Local Fox stations are really better than national Fox (if that makes sense). What I mean is that Fox 59 (Indy) doesn't run say Sean Hannity, but rather focuses on more local news than national news.

With Sinclair, they would be, and have been, telling their stations to do exactly that, in the form of "Must run segments". In other words, they are passing opinion pieces off as "news" not unlike what Fox News (National 24 hours) did with O'Reilly. Only on a more local level.

Also, there is the problem, as not as obvious, with competition. They own, or are buying up a lot of stations primarily in traditionally blue states; 13 in California, 7 in Central Illinois (WGN pending would be 8), 9 in Oregon, 7 in Washington, the rest of their properties are in the 3-4/state span. Exepting Texas (8) and Florida (they have 12 in Florida/Mobile AL).

Re:

Yes, what Sinclair is doing is pretty obvious once you can convince anyone to actually look at their actions. They're building the biggest nationalism propaganda machine in planetary history. And they're being aided in this by the nationalists in the current administration.

If that doesn't look like fascism to you, you aren't looking hard enough....

"Smaller organizations like the American Cable Association (ACA) applauded and supported Pai's rise to power, now seem surprised as his policies focus almost exclusively on aiding the biggest and wealthiest companies:"

Translation - we thought he was going to help us screw over the littler guys, not the bigger guys screw us.

Well:

No Surprises here

Not surprised by the choice, but not for the reasons you would like to push.

What I think is interesting is that more than half of Karl's posts are about cord cutting and how people are moving away from mainstream media sources. That includes things like Spotify instead of over the air radio stations.

So it's not really a surprise to find out what media companies are working to consolidate. They know that the single path towards profitable operations and survival is to have one set of services for as many stations / channels / operations as possible. Cutting the number of people and amount of office space per station is a way to make the bottom line work out.

There are also big benefits in things like formats, common advertising, and the like.

Iheatradio was the original in this field, and it's only really having problems because of extreme leveraging during the buyouts and consolidations. They have way too much debt and no simple way to pay it off. Otherwise, they are actually doing well and their popular app is letting them bridge the gap to the digital world.

Consolidation is a normal state of affairs, blocked only by rules put in places decades ago, long before the internet was a thing. Everyone around here says the internet changes everything, so why shouldn't it?

Proof that sometimes you do get exactly what you paid for. Or as any good Republican would put it, this is just more proof that free market capitalism works. At least as far as buying politicians and bureaucrats is concerned.

This will accelerate the death of broadcast and cable TV

Predictions:

Cable and Broadcast TV will become a vast wasteland just like "automated" radio DJs are today.

Networks, such the XBC television network, have affiliates. But as those affiliates become automated, consider: There is BREAKING NEWS right now in Uncanny Valley NJ. We're taking you to our local affiliate right now who has a reporter on the scene. what? is that right? I have just been informed that our local affiliate is completely automated and there is no local studio and no local reporters.

Re: Re: This will accelerate the death of broadcast and cable TV

You can always get a "stringer" cheap. You hire someone who works at some other job, maybe selling real-estate, which is a good way to accumulate local knowledge, and only works for the station, and only gets paid, when there is news. The stringer keeps her camera in her car, and when something happens, she goes and reports it. The big newspapers have always had stringers, who were usually reporters for local newspapers. Nowadays, the choicest source of TV footage is the cellphones of people who happen to already be there.

However, the basic function of local news is not to just sit there until something national-headline-worthy happens. The basic function of local news is to keep track of local government, and keep it from becoming too corrupt. Commercial local news does pay someone to go and sit on the city hall steps, as long as necessary, until the mayor comes out. Local news is traditionally handled as a byproduct of entertainment and advertising, but this is breaking down. I think that in the last analysis, local government will simply have to be made to pay for having itself investigated.

An immediate measure will be "sunshine laws," adapted to the internet. The essence of a sunshine law is that secret proceedings are illegal, and null and void. The last three words are the important part. A building contractor, for example, wants a properly signed and sealed building permit, which he can show if challenged. It is not all that difficult for officials to illegally meet in secret, but such a meeting has no legal standing. A contractor with a building permit signed at a meeting which [officially] never took place is in an invidious position. The danger lies in the "public" meeting, which is not actually attended by the public, or by a member of the press. Well, sunshine laws just have to be adapted to the internet. The technical details will have to be worked out, of course. They will probably include automatic deposit of records of public proceedings with a higher level of government, and making these records available to the general public. An interested party would then be able to employ someone in India to go through the records, and make notes of the interesting parts.

I am not quite clear why Sinclair wants to build up a network of local television stations with no local content. By and by large, people who want to watch television have either cable television, or a satellite dish, or even internet-based service. Satellite dishes are no respecters of national frontiers, and it is only a matter of time before foreign countries begin breaking into the American satellite dish broadcasting market in a serious way. Satellite dishes are _really_ ubiquitous in red states. You see them on all the mobile homes. The highest and best use of the frequencies employed by broadcast television is 5G cellphone service, specifically, a cellphone for a farmer driving a tractor out in the middle of nowhere.